Tuesday April 25, 2023
ACWA —
In a milestone for the re-establishment of a viable steelhead run in the Alameda Creek watershed, high-tech fish monitoring by two local water agencies tagged, detected and documented a juvenile trout this past week, migrating downstream from the upper watershed through lower Alameda Creek toward San Francisco Bay.
For the first time in over 50 years, steelhead, salmon and other anadromous fishes can migrate from the Bay upstream to reach spawning and rearing habitat in the upper Alameda Creek watershed, thanks to the Alameda County Water District and San Francisco Public Utilities Commission’s new fish passage facilities in both the lower creek in Fremont and upper creek in Sunol Regional Wilderness. Within the first two months of the lower ladder’s operation, upstream migrating adult Chinook Salmon and Pacific Lamprey were observed using the new structure to bypass a former barrier known as the BART Weir, with adult steelhead expected to use these ladders as well.
For over 20 years, ACWD, SFPUC, and the Alameda Creek Alliance have been working collaboratively with other stakeholders to address migration barriers and enhance stream flows to allow steelhead to access inland spawning habitat, spawn, and rear in the upper watershed. In October, SFPUC biologists tagged juvenile trout in the upper watershed using Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) technology. This week, one of those tagged fish was detected 15 miles downstream by specialized antennae located in ACWD’s fish ladder in lower Alameda Creek.